Jigsaw
by pathera
Summary: Like the pieces of a puzzle, the clues telling the true identity of Batman just fell into place. A peak into Gordon's head, one-shot.


A/N: I have two one-shots about the Joker, two about Bruce/Batman, and this makes two for Gordon. Interesting...here's another peak inside Gordon's head, this time with him piecing together the true identity of our favorite masked vigilante. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I'm so bad at remembering these things. I don't even own the Dark Knight on DVD yet, so what does that tell you?

Jigsaw

Jim Gordon—_Commissioner _Jim Gordon—was by nature a curious person. He always had been, ever since he was a child. But the phrase "curiosity killed the cat" was especially true in Gotham City; curiosity _would _get you killed, and not in a pretty way.

So he suppressed his curiosity, but you can't get rid of such a thing. It made him more observant, which was always a plus—and plus really means _necessary for survival_—and it led him to conclusions, led him collect facts from the world around him and put them together.

Batman was an enigma, and more than that, Batman made all of that suppressed curiosity rear its ugly head. Every time Jim Gordon looked at the masked visage of the vigilante he wanted—_ached_—to know. At the same time he didn't want to know, because his knowing would lead only to trouble. So he buried his curiosity and he told himself, firmly, that he did _not _want to know.

But a curious person can't repress their nature entirely, and Jim noticed things despite his firm conviction that he would not. He was observant, about everything but _particularly _about Batman. He collected the clues, filing them away and then sorting through them almost unconsciously, fitting together his suspicions about Batman the way he fit together the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.

Whoever Batman was he was wealthy. The car alone—the _Batmobile_, as the newspapers had nicknamed it—was high tech and probably cost more than Gordon's house. The suit, the gadgets—Batman had money, and not just a little bit. A _lot_.

There weren't many people in Gotham who could boast of that kind of wealth.

Then there were the people that Batman called his allies. Besides himself there was only one other person that Jim could really connect with the masked vigilante. Rachel Dawes. And there had been more to Batman's relationship with Rachel than a mere alliance; Jim had seen that, even when he wasn't looking.

And then there were the injuries. Batman was good, but he wasn't invincible. He bled like anyone else; he was fast and he was strong and he acted like he felt no pain, but Jim had seen the knives slip through the cracks in his armor, the punches land squarely on his jaw.

It was the injuries that finally gave him the breakthrough to the identity—the _secret_ identity—of the vigilante called Batman. He watched the Joker land a lucky blow with one of his many knives, cutting a long mark on Batman's jaw.

The fight was front page the next morning. The picture of Bruce Wayne's latest accident was on page seven about three days after that. Gordon's eyes landed on the healing cut running the length of Bruce Wayne's face, the same cut that he had watched the Joker cut into Batman.

And, like the pieces of jigsaw puzzle, everything clicked into place.

Batman was _Bruce Wayne_. The playboy of Gotham, one of the wealthiest, carefree, clumsiest people in the entire city. Except he wasn't carefree and he certainly wasn't clumsy at all. He used his wealth to supply himself, used a facade of clumsiness and extreme sports to hide the injuries received at night, pretended to be a blithering idiot so that no one would dream that he, of all people, could possibly be _Batman_.

But he was. Jim Gordon knew that he was.

The pieces of the puzzle were all there, and Jim Gordon had the keys to answering his greatest questions, fulfilling his curiosity.

_Curiosity killed the cat. _

He kept his mouth shut, just the way Gotham had taught him, and every time he watched Batman—_Bruce Wayne_—disappear into the night, he smiled.

* * *

As always, reviews are much appreciated!


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